Joannie Cowie and her son Alex, from Windsor, Ont. with volunteer sag wagon captain Dave, from Lunenburg, NS are on their way through NB on their way across the country on the Canada Cares Tour. Joannie hopes to raise awareness for individuals with disabilites. Their long journey began on January 1 in Newfoundland. They are now in the Nackawic area and will be heading upriver to Woodstock on the TCH on Wednesday. They welcome the company of any cyclist who would like to ride along for a few kilometres. Full story and photos on Velo NB web site : http://velonb.surfcity.nb.ca

The Canadian tandem team had very good results at the Ronde Van Belgie, a stage race for visually impaired. Eleven countries entered the 13th edition of this internationally prestigious event, held from May 13th to 16th. 1999 marked the second year of participation for the Canadian team in this race. The tandem of Yvon Provencher / Fabien Bergeron, finished 6th overall. The mixed tandem of Julie Cournoyer / Alexandre Cloutier, completed the race in 14th overall and first in the mixed classification. The men's tandem from BC, Brian Cowie / Min van Velzen, ended up 20th overall. The last men's tandem team of Stéphane Côté / Mathieu Fagnan, did not complete the race due to a hard crash in the last stage. The result of that crash was a broken rib for Stéphane and multiple wounds for Mathieu. The tandem of Cowie / van Velzen had a good ride in the prologue by taking third place, while Côté / Fagnan took 8th spot.

Stage 2 was dominated by Canadians. Cowie / van Velzen took the stage win with Provencher / Bergeron right on their wheel, after the two tandems broke away with 55 km to go. The tandem of Côté / Fagnan finished 5th in the pack sprint, good for 7th place on the stage.

Canadians showed their ability to sprint by taking 2th, 7th and 8th places at the hot sprints classification. The Canadian team tooked second place at the team classification behind the Spanish team who dominated the race by taking the first four places overall, greatly helped by the fact that they were 10 tandems in the race.

The race was part of the national team's preparation program for the PanAmerican Games taking place in Mexico next November, and ultimately for the Sydney's Paralympic Games in the fall of 2000.